i think that the biggest point that people seem to be missing is the point of the main three disiplines....freestyle=high volume boards that take next to nothing to get going, so they use small sails to aid their manuvers....wave is all about control and turning ability, plus the factor that many people dont seem to notice when you see the pros on 60-70l boards and their 3-4m sails sailing jaws, you gota remember that as long as you can get up on the board after a fall, thats all you need after that when you catch your wave, aparant wind goes crazy and you are now able to use your uber small wave sail... i have personal experiance with flat water sailing (as i live in land) and we get the odd 35-40knt day in which the gusts are 35-40 knots. if you can hang on during the gusts or even sheet out a litle lay back in your harnais and reduce sail area, you can easily use a sail 6.0 on a 100l+ board, because you are rigging for the average wind speed which is about 20-25knts, easily doable with a bit of experiance (forget pro) on flat water. since there are no waves or obsticles, as long as you can hold the sail down, wile very scary and deffinately fast it is doable, and then you get to go on forums like this and say "i sail with a 6.5 in 40 knts!!!" personaly, with my limited experiance (2 very short summers) i can handle about 35knts with a 4.7 maxed out and a 88l board and thorowly enjoy myself at my current weight of about 70kgs dressed, but again, with very small onshore waves, maybe 2-3 feet max, and i meen MAX, so no problem obsticles wise ;p
happy sailing!
ps. a good reason why pros can use such sails in such winds is that they spend their entire day sailing instead of posting replys on forums like this like the average jo..;p
fair winds to all!

This is BS all the way. This must be something like 70 km/h wind at best, not 70 knots. Come on guys, 70 knots is 12 Beaufort, 130+ km/h winds. You can't even stand up still on your own and measure wind with your anemometer on a beach. Get real. This is plain silly. As silly as standing upright on the roof of your car while driving on the highway at 130 km/h. Ludicrous.